Alternative faith
by Clave99Niebla
Summary: Is it possible to change... an already altered future? Or... is all of this... a lie? Are they captivated in the ruins, inhumed in the lower regions and dreaming themselves away? Who knows... who knows? Serah is happy here, it's her birthday today... can the others help her celebrate it in the best kind of way as possible? I know she would of appreaciated it... at least.


**_Prologue:_**

I knew that this time would be down to count within between the laps…  
I knew that this would happen…  
Still… I could not be there for her, to… show her the way once she needed me the most. Serah… I'm sorry. Hear my regrets, hear my desire once I wish for a different output of it all… A plea which can never reach to you, a plea which could of changed the future, for my dear… If only, you didn't procure Noel with your white lie to let him believe that you of all people who were about to die… could foretell a brighter future with you included within it. If only there was some sort of way for me… to save you.  
Hear my deepest apology when I say that I will put an end to your suffering, once and for all.

 _I am a warrior of the goddess of Etro, a warrior, sworn to protect her kingdom, bathed in a shallow wretchedness of loss of the time, immortality and non-regeneration… the distress of Valhalla. I fought Caius once, which caused an era to show its presence where I no longer exist._

It's not very hard to spot my faults… a statue of polished, unblemished glass, sitting in a throne with her curls flapping through the air, while holding a sword. My hair was the only thing connected to my appearance which could reveal the storm, invigorating deeply inside of my heart, carving incisions through its bloody poundings and causing aches to a promising sepsis. An expression made by the facial, affected by emotions, can be distinct, readily distinguishable by the senses of hearken abilities and vision, or it can be concealed, hard to see through and protective to hide sensibility, the act of faking.  
Enhancing my further tranquil constitution was an ocean of shambles, sheltered from the outside. It felt… fiercely and mightily to openly resist defeat. Caius were my finest opponent, just like I were his. I think that faith brought us together on the battlefield in Valhalla to, once and for all, bring an end to despair. I do not wish to have let it end in any different sort of way, after all, Noel, Serah and myself brought peace to the new Cacoon, at least for this very moment of her last breather. We changed the future to the better kind, but… what I do regret is the demise of Caius and my sister.

 _The heart of chaos was beating in his chest, a manifestation of Etro… If that heart stops beating, the goddess will die for a second time.  
Noel killed the goddess, since he brought an end to Caius.  
When the goddess dies, the chaos of Valhalla is unleashed. The chaos has the power to warp the timeline and destroy the past._

And that is exactly what happened. As for Serah, she knew that her life would be in danger, even though Noel trusted the conception of her being safe, still in one piece, even in a prospective dimension, Bhunivelze.

 _ **Alternative destination of the timeline:**_

\- So, once this is all over, would you promise to go back to New Bodhum with me?

The rosy, pink haired girl questioned while she beamed of pure joy and met the dark haired male's vision.

\- You can count on it, Serah! There is no way I'm going back on my words!

He responded enthusiastically and stretched out his arms above her. Suddenly a strange thought hit his head and as them both fell down from the sky in the speed of light... he wanted to wrap his arms around her in a hug. But... that couldn't be right, could it?  
How would she react if he did?

No, obviously he shouldn't. Instead, he closed his eyes and allowed the faith to bring them wherever it wanted to take them after their final battle with the three dragons.

Serah took a deep breath and decided to repeat Noel's action as she gently let her eyelids slip down over her peering sight as well. So suddenly Noel would feel how these delicate arms embraced his neck. Serah would cling to him from below and hug him tightly.

Sure, that smile of hers might have been trust worthy from the very start, but deep down she tried her uttermost not to expose a... distress. She knew that she were about to die at this very moment, and after the risks she had taken by staying able-bodied and able-minded for too long... this was her breaking point.

-Ah!

She screamed, cried out loud.

\- S-Serah?!

This seemed to be the awakening bell of Noel's. Maybe, just maybe he had wished for a brighter future with them existing within it, but if the veracity should be outspoken, them both were about to die currently...

\- Save us!

Noel directed his vision back and forth from all views and angles, but there seemed to be no source of salvation around. He simply had no other choice but to cling onto Serah as well as they together would witness a terrible death... seemingly.

\- Noel, do you have a last wish? In that case, you better speak up now!

He had never seen her this desperate, it almost... brought devastation to his heart...  
He realized that... this really was it. In a deliberate manner he exhaled some air before he thought about it for a second...

\- Then... I wish for us to end up in the same hea-... Huh?!

He couldn't utter it. Was it because they couldn't go there because of all the crimes they had committed in all these worlds already, was it because they were meant to end up in hell, like paradoxes should?

He tried again with a failed result.

\- N-Noel?!

\- Serah... can I tell you something crazy?

He was... smiling.

\- W-what is it?!

She wondered with wide opened eyes, that kind of facial expression you would make right before the appearance of your deathbed.

\- Always...

\- Always?

He changed his mind as he shook his head.

\- No, listen, just listen... It doesn't matter if we die if we can make the future better for others, does it? I think that... this journey was enough. A-at least-...

*For me to understand that you are the one I want to spend the rest of my days with.*

\- At least?

\- ...For me to realize that you are the best of friend I could ever have. I will value our friendship forever, Serah.

\- H-huh?

*Friendship, heh?*

She made up her mind.

*Snow, will you forgive me? It seems like... we can't get married just yet. And... I'm not so sure if I want that either... maybe I really am bound to chase after Noel for the rest of my living?*

\- Noel...

\- Yes, Serah?

\- Nevermind...

She shook her head.

\- Just say it while you still can.

He exhorted and raised an eyebrow in the same, quaint way as he always would...

\- Can you keep a promise?

*Maybe he deserves to know after all these sacrifices he did make for me?*

\- Tell me already.

*My ears are always attentive to your voice.*

She leaned closer to his ear and would even dare as much as whisper...

\- I love you.

Crash, boom, pang! Two deceased souls buried in ruins.

*I love you too, Serah.*

 **Chapter one:**

 _700 AF – The end of humanity._

 _Paddra Nsu-Yeul was born 17 years and 364 days ago, 682 AF. On her eighteenth birthday it was her turn, together with many other people on this extremely characterized area in the world of grief of Cacoon, to finally meet her dome at the edge of her timeline. This was her first death out of many, additional others…_  
 _As a small child she would be born in a serene and nonviolent village. Here she could experience her childhood, growing up with still vivid parents, in a family, a home, filled with assurance of joy and amenity. She was happy here, and by the age of 4 years old, she met Caius and Noel for the first time. Timidity gotten the best hold of her and it even took weeks before she could convince herself to have her first conversation with them, even though the boys were much less reclusive than that and wondered why she didn't seem too interested to play with them at first? Well as mentioned, this came to alter._

One day when Yeul was 10 years old, after school, she had promised to head home early to assist her dad while he harvested some plants and other crops from their personal country garden. A beam is usually used to express happiness, something positive that can prove that a certain person is fortunate and lucky, and in this case, the descriptive terms wouldn't be any different for her. Her mind was thrilled with excitement and with these very light steps she would leave the campus for young pupils and skip her way through a nearby shortcut, leading to her block. She was so exalted that she even declined an invitation, consisting of a visit at her friend's place, Noel's. He wanted to hang out this afternoon and kill some time in a pleasant manner together with his chum.  
Once she arrived outside the tree gate, nailed to the fence, on this sunny day, just before the sunset, she didn't even bother to waste a couple of seconds to open it but jumped straight above and landed with a bound on the other side and felt how the stone boulders supported her feet underneath her body. With a dash she sprinted to the entrance of the house and clattered up the front door.

\- I'm home!

With eagerness she awaited the sound of a reply from her caring mother. Without any doubts a lovely dinner had been cooked and just by a few minutes she would be offered a taste of it around the dining table where the whole family was supposed to be gathered…  
Oh, imaginatively she visualized the sweet smell of freshly baked bread with jam and strawberry pieces, following a soup as for a starter, and then the scrumptious main dish, but no matter how much she wished for such a scent of beatific food, the smell never seemed to reach her nose, no matter how much she sniffed for it. She wouldn't get a respond either…

This was very strange to her, but, if she remembered right, last week the same thing would have happened on a Wednesday… Maybe the mother just hadn't got the time to prepare the dinner for her arrival just yet?

Shrugging she headed for the backyard instead. A few meters away from the kitchen, next to the entrance to the left, there was a veranda. She opened a tensile door and the atmosphere of a moist, sultry area was inhaled by her just like a… smack in the face. It was such a difference from indoors, even the school building had air conditioning in almost every single room. She coughed in her elbow a couple of times before she had gotten used to it, as always.  
Then it was time to scamper down to the gardening area on the small field they owned, hundred meters away from a lake.

\- Daddy!

Her oddly long, dark blue hair was kept up in bun, the sun would radiate beams which blazed against her fair skin and her green eyes explored the area, in search for her dad.

\- Dad?

She called out again, this time not just as confidently as the first… Yeul bit her lower lip and her eyebrows was drawn together with a frown, undivided with concern.

\- Yeul?

After a short while her mind could be laid on ease. She respired in relief and tracked down the spot of where she had been hearing the tight-lipped tone.

\- Dad?

Yeul nearly whispered his name… As she rounded the corner of a box with a flower bed planted within it she was taken by trauma. There, hewed down on the ground, he laid.  
He had been… stabbed in the back and the blood gushed out through his flesh and bones.

\- D-d-d-…

She stuttered on her words, and not too soon from this very moment, a fairy tale had been altered into… a cursed faith. Momentarily her feet betrayed her and she stumbled down and would smite her back with a firm blow against the dirty, earthen ground.

\- Yeul… r-run…

The older man coughed as his vision blotted out, in pace with the stream of essence which float through his veins and suppressed his breath. Yeul couldn't believe her own eyes.  
She was… shaken, couldn't afford to move the slightest millimeter. This cursed faith… it would scoff the life she once knew on no time before these guards appeared from behind and encircled her. The scenery of a paradise was consumed by a great force of darkness and grief, yet before she could grasp it herself… her father was murdered by these men.

She remember that she was crying back then, she shrieked and wept down in tears.  
Nowadays… she didn't have much of a choice but to accept her kismet… her destiny.  
On that day, she was abducted. No one could bear in mind what happened… no one except from her. The seeress is bound to look into the future, and she knows what's going to occur.  
Even though she had this vision not too long ago, back then, she was just imagine that it had been some kind of… nightmare and ignored it. But once she faced the realistic deal, it had been too much for her to handle. The weird part is… once she was caught, she didn't resist.

It was pointless, so did she were aware. In her next life, she officially became a real seeress, selected by the goddess of Etro, guarded by two hunters, Noel Kreiss and Caius Ballad.

She was the only who recognized the truth. No one else did. Their memories had been erased.


End file.
